Let my hoodies go!

Last week, the New York Post ran a cover photo of three African-American New York lawmakers on the floor of the Legislature in Albany with hoods draped over their heads.

The hoods were attached to sweatshirts, or “hoodies,” individually colored white, red and black. In the photo, the politicians looked extra absurd to me for the way they were wearing their hoodies while indoors and under blazers to boot.

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That was only the start of the week’s sartorial silliness.

Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) repeated the fashion faux pas on the floor of the House and got himself tossed out of the place. He started the speech wearing a gray hoodie under his blazer. Mid-speech, the congressman removed the blazer, pulled the hood down over his head and replaced his spectacles with dark, almost comical sunglasses.

Rush quoted verses from the Bible until acting Speaker Gregg Harper finally gaveled him down. Harper ordered the sergeant at arms to “enforce the prohibition on decor,” which disallows the wearing of hats while the House is in session. Harper ruled that hoods count, too.

The lawmakers claimed that they were wearing hoodies in solidarity with the family of Trayvon Martin, the Florida youth who was fatally shot by community watch coordinator George Zimmerman in late February. Zimmerman had called the police to report “suspicious behavior,” and many of Martin’s partisans and critics have claimed that his hoodie had something to do with that suspicion.

Television talk show host Geraldo Rivera was most prominent among the critics. On the Fox News Latino website, he wrote, “His hoodie killed Trayvon Martin as surely as George Zimmerman did.”

Rivera explained that incendiary remark by saying, “No one black, brown or white can honestly tell me that seeing a kid of color with a hood pulled over his head doesn’t generate a certain reaction, sometimes scorn, often menace.” Rivera has since apologized on air to Martin’s parents.